Cpl Gilad Shalit is the first Israeli soldier kidnapped by Palestinians since 1994. In contrast, Israel is believed to have about 100 women and 300 under-18s among the more than 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails. As one blogger argues, we are learning that;
"For Israel, the lives of many Palestinians do not add up to one Israeli. No wonder there is no peace."
The world focuses on the fate of this one Israeli soldier when thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned, detained or killed in their fight for independence. Such focus and international condemnation we do not see for the thousands of Palestinian hostages in Israeli prisons. Instead we continue to witness widespread support for Israel; examples here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here, rather then hearing the call for the cessation of the collective punishment of the fearful citizens of Gaza.
The BBC reports that the White House said Israel had "the right to defend itself" but should ensure civilians were not harmed. If it is accepted that Israel has the right to violently invade Palestine, imprison Palestinians, and assassinate their leaders, then Palestinian militants are justified in attacking an Israeli military outpost and detaining an Israeli soldier. Operation Summer Rain is not just a response to the Palestinian tunnel raid, or aimed at prying hostage soldier Gilad Shalit free from his captors. Regardless of whether second and third hostages have also been taken, as Juan Cole states; "the force here is all out of proportion." With the hostage situation being a mere excuse for Israel to destroy Hamas and possibly Islamic Jihad also, since Tuesday, Gaza has been invaded and experienced air-strikes, deaths, and cuts in water and power. In fact, Israel has even stooped so low as to use the situation as an opportunity to provoke and threaten Syria! Omar sums up the reality of the situation with the sentence:
"Releasing the soldier will cause nothing, the invasion will continue under another excuse no doubt, and keep hiding him will cause the invasion to be worse, it will force a door-to-door scan, a giant number of arrests, and most definitely will cause the Israelis to amplify the time needed for the completion of that invasion with whatever missions they want to accomplish under the surface there."
When will the global community speak up and demand that the violence and oppression ceases?
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Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - zingzing
i think both sides... oh, what does it matter? nothing ever changes, no one ever learns anything... have fun y'all! kill each other! fine. (it's just positive reinforcement of what yous would do anyway.)
2 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Well, Jamal, you left enough links to leave a guy reading till doomsday. I'd be too impatient to throw in so many links.
I will not engage in an exchange of insults with you. And unfortunately the Israeli government does engage in enough evil - not just against Arabs, either.
But let's look at the record for just a moment, Jamal. Kidnapping and murdering an Olympic team in München in 1972. Kidnapping a planeload of passenges and dragging them off to Entebbe in 1976. Kidnapping a ship, the Achille Lauro in the '70's, and pushing an old man in a wheel-chair overboard. Kidnapping and murdering two teenagers and tearing them apart with the viciousness of animals in a case near Teqo'a in 2000. Seizing two soldiers who took a wrong turn and slaughtering them for the cameras with blood crazed hands in 2000 or 2001. Kidnapping a hitchhiking kid and murdering him in Ramallah this week. Kidnapping a 62 year old pensioner too.
Aw shucks, boys will be boys, right? Nothing to work up a sweat over, eh?
And they're just Jews, right? Like those Gazans told my friend back in 1978 (not knowing that he was a Jew), just less Jews to deal with, eh?
So far, to my knowledge, the IDF is bombing sand dunes and dropping candy bars while knocking out electric plants. So far, good kids have not been put in harm's way by the traitors in government hill here.
But really, Jamal, you do protest too much. When Israeli soldiers are sent in to fight house to house, I'll agree with you that the Israeli gov't is working evil. If they want to get rid of terrorists, they should flatten the place with block-busters and collateral damages be damned. Arab terrorists have been concentrating on collateral damage (that is what the preceding paragraph is all about) and screaming how they would wipe Israel off the map for at least four decades...
They have it coming.
3 - Al Barger
Jamal, you write "Israel is believed to have about 100 women and 300 under-18s among the more than 8,000 Palestinian prisoners in its jails." You write that as if women or teenagers have never been suicide bombers or jihadists.
But then you knew that. You just don't care.
4 - Tony Axtell
I think there is a clear difference between arresting purpotrators of terrorism and kidnapping hostages! It is ignorant to suggest otherwise!
5 - Bob
You forgot to mention that those imprisoned Palestinian's are all guilty criminals. Most were cought in the attempt of murdering innocent civilians.
6 - gary in Dallas
Jamal wrote: "If it is accepted that Israel has the right to violently invade Palestine,..."
Er...where is Palestine? I can't seem to find it on my map...hmmm...
7 - gazelle
news: military commissions at guantanamo illegal : US supreme court
so is the israeli occupation of land and displacement/confinement of people.
best
8 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Jamal,
I know you posted a pack of links; let me toss one in for you. Arab terrorists, as I pointed out concentrate on civilians - soldiers tend to shoot back. This one at Ynet.comis about the funeral of a civilian, a kid killed by these pigs.
Enjoy reading.
9 - charlie
The unfairness of the Arab demonization of Israel since 1948. The racism and lies.
It seems as if the only acceptable solution to Arabs is the total destruction of Israel and genocide of the jews. What gives them the right to demand that.
The saddest part is that the suffering of the Palestinian people could end if only they would accept peace.
10 - bry, boston
Interesting that it is ok to kidnap (and murder) an innocent teenager because of his sidelocks and an elderly pensioner becaues of his residence, yet to arrest known terrorists planning to blow up themselves and the local 14 year old girls shopping at the mall is severly frowned upon.
Why should women pretending to be pregnant (really loaded with bombs) and 17 year old men with bombs strapped to their bodies be treated any differently than the 20 year old man with a bomb strapped to his body? Israel arrests criminals. Hamas kidnaps, and then murders often torturously innocents.
11 - Daniel
Jamal Writes:
"When will the global community speak up and demand that the violence and oppression ceases?"
This statement should apply to the Palestinians that continue to murder innocent civilians.
12 - Bob
It seems to me that Isreal is sick of the now too common rocket attacks, suicide bombers, and various other acts against its citizens. They pulled out of the area last year to make the effort to have peace. The Hamas governemtn has done nothing but call for every Isreali to be wiped off the Earth. Hmmm...those Palestinians are ready to ive in peace...(Please note sarcasm). What would the UK, US, China, Russia, or France do?
13 - Dima
1. Israeli soldier didn't do anything wrong to anyone. The "innocent" women/children/infants did (may be not the infants:) DID. They objected to the "occupation" by throwing rocks and doing other evil things that are illegal in any civilized society.
2. P. terrorize, I. responds. "Terror" is bringing death and destruction to innocent. P. do that all the time (blown buses, etc.), ON PURPOSE. I., if kills bystanders (innocent), does so NOT on purpose (collateral), nor does it executes any convicted killers from the P. side (may be they should).
3. P. and other A. have trouble with the thought that they lost numerous wars that they started with I. (again, they started!). Now, as one russian proverb says "the beaten one cannot sleep at night".
4. If P. want peace, they need to get civilized, and achieve their goals by the rules of the civilized world. Otherwise, they will live below any modern living standard, as they already are doing.
14 - John
Unfortunately, not all of these civillians are innocent. Lets not forget they voted in a terrorist regeime know for its violent attacks against civillians. These people are no longer as innocent as people would like them to be.
15 - Andy
Jamal...you just don't get it. The fighting will never end. Oil and water, these religions will fight till the end of time. May the final crusade be complete and victorious.
16 - Ace
Jamal....
Sorry to give you this reality check too, but-
Even the world stopped drinking this Kool Aid
The world used to cringe at the sight of Israeli soldiers, now they cringe when they see...people of your persuasion...and they don't tell you.
You guys need to figure out a new tactic for persuading people you are the good guys.
I think the whole "flying jets into buildings" and "blowing up trains" plan backfired just a bit.
I used to do what comment#2-Ruvy did and go through history, but there is no reason to do that anymore, nobody cares about you guys.
We (Israel) used to be in that situation and ate our hats.
It just sucks to be an Arab nowdays doesn't it?
oh well...
BTW the building flattening in Gaza will start soon, so get your popcorn!
ONE LAST THING...I voted for Rabin and Barak- you do the math; If I am this cynical, how well did these tactics work on a lefty, liberal, peace loving guy, I used to be.
17 - pablo
I don't want peace!!! PERIOD. I want Israel to get what belongs to them since it was given to them not in 1948, but before the gr8 diaspora. Look at what they've done since they've gotten a hold of their land...
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May 9, 2002 8:45 a.m.
Why Don't I Care About the Palestinians?
The options, as I see them.
why don't I care about the Palestinians? It is, of course, wrong of me not to care. It can't be much fun being a Palestinian. You, or your parents, or your grandparents, ran for their lives in the 1948 war. You â€" and/or they, plus a couple of generations of uncles, aunts, siblings, and cousins â€" have been huddled in some squalid refugee camp ever since, living off UNRWA handouts. ("UNRWA," by the way, stands for "U.S. taxpayer." But you knew that!) There is no economy worth participating in. Your leaders won a fragmented, halfway sort of autonomy for you at Oslo; but it didn't work, you're not sure why. Nothing really got any better, and now the Israelis have smashed it all up anyway. The other Arabs all hate you (a little-known factor of Middle East political life, but one attested by my colleague David Pryce-Jones, who knows the Arabs better than anyone). Things look bad, and you are sunk in despair. Shouldn't I feel sorry for you?
Sure, I personally favor Israel in this conflict. That's my right ? Shouldn't I have some Christian compassion to spare for the poor suffering Palestinians? Ask not for whom the bell tolls, etc., etc. Well, I suppose I should, but to be honest about it, I don't. Why not? Why don't I care about the Palestinians? The answer is NOT any of the following.
I like taking showers with Jews.
Palestinians have dark skin and I'm a racist.
My name was originally Derbstein.
My British blood is boiling with shame over the lost empire.
I am a lackey of, or am trying to ingratiate myself with, the Jews who run the U.S. media.
I am a cruel, hard-hearted bigot.
The answer isn't exactly compassion fatigue, either. That's pretty close, though. I am aware of a certain level of compassion fatigue in regard to the world at large, and it spills over into the Palestinian issue.
The other day I had the depressing experience of reading, one right after the other, Stephen Kotkin's wonderfully titled "Trashcanistan" in the April 15th New Republic, then Helen Epstein's "Mozambique: In Search of the Hidden Cause of AIDS" in the May 9th New York Review of Books. The first of these was a long portmanteau review of six books about the fates of various components of the old U.S.S.R. in the years since the thing fell apart. The second tries to discover why a sleepy rural area of Mozambique, populated by courteous folk practicing a traditional way of life, has high levels of AIDS.
Kotkin's account of the ex-Soviet colonies â€" Ukraine, Moldova, the central Asian and Caucasian republics, etc. â€" is hair-raising. Principal features of the landscape here are utter economic collapse, "gangland violence among state ministers," rising Islamofascism and the flight of large sectors of the population. (One-third of the able-bodied workforce of Moldova has fled. I have just been reading another report about that wretched country. Sample quote: "Experts estimate that since the fall of the Soviet Union between 200,000 and 400,000 women have been sold into prostitution â€" perhaps up to 10 percent of the female population.") Kotkin writes beautifully about this appalling situation, which stretches across the entire southern and western marches of the old U.S.S.R., illuminating his account with memorable one-liners like: "Ukraine has gotten its state and is eating it, too."
Helen Epstein's piece on Mozambique tells of a state of affairs just as awful. The fundamental problem, she discovers, is that: "These people are so poor ... that sex has become part of their economy. In some cases, it's practically the only currency they have." The men go away for months on end to work in the South African mines â€" where, of course, they console themselves with prostitutes. The women left behind survive as best they can, often by becoming the mistresses of the few local men who can actually afford to eat. Why are they all so poor? Because Mozambique has been wrecked by corruption, tribal war and stupid economics.
What a world! You can only read a certain amount of this stuff before you start to avert your eyes. What on earth can anyone hope to do about all this? All the simple explanations for the horrors that stain a large part of our planet have been used up. We now know that it's not the fault of colonialism, or neo-colonialism, or capitalism, or socialism. It's just the way these places are. They can't handle modernity, for some cultural reason we don't understand and can't do anything about.
That's the context in which I see the Palestinians. The Palestinians are Arabs; and the Arabs, whatever their medieval achievements (as best I can understand, they were mainly achievements of transmission â€" "Arabic" numerals, for example, came from India) are politically hopeless. Who can dispute this? Look at the last 50-odd years, since the colonial powers left. What have the Arabs accomplished? What have they built? Where in the Arab world is there a trace or a spark of democracy? Of constitutionalism? Of laws independent of the ruler's whim? Of free inquiry? Of open public debate? Where in your house is there any article stamped "Made in Syria?" Arabs can be individually very charming and capable, and perform very well in free societies like the U.S.A. There are at least two recent Nobel prizes with Arab names attached. Collectively, though, as nations, the Arabs are no-hopers.
All of this applies to the Palestinians. I spent some of my formative years in Hong Kong, a barren piece of rock with zero natural resources, under foreign occupation, chock-full of refugees from the Mao tyranny. The people there weren't lounging in UNRWA camps or making suicide runs at the governor's mansion. They were trading, building, speculating, manufacturing, working â€" with the result that Hong Kong is now a glittering modern city filled with well-dressed, well-educated, well-fed people, proud of what they have accomplished together, and with a higher standard of living than Britain herself. If, following the Oslo accords â€" or for that matter, in the 20 years of Jordanian occupation â€" the Palestinians had taken that route, had set aside their fantasies of revenge and massacre, and concentrated on building up something worth having, I might have respect for them. As it is, I don't.
The only halfway sympathetic thing I can find to say about the Palestinians is that UNRWA has surely been part of the problem. If you go to the UNRWA website, you will see how proud they are of having fed, clothed, sheltered, educated and cared for the Palestinian refugees of 1948... and their children... and their grandchildren. The number of people UNRWA cares for has gone from 600,000 in 1948 to nearly four million today. Now, I understand that the prime impulse of bureaucracies, especially welfare bureaucracies, is the consolidation and expansion of their turf, and a steady increase in the number of their "clients"; but this is ridiculous. The good people of Hong Kong should go down on their knees every night and thank God that there was no UNRWA in the colony in 1949. So, come to think of it, should the German and East European refugees who flooded into Western Europe after WWII. (I have seen the number 14 million somewhere â€" the Sudeten Germans alone numbered three million. Where are the festering camps? Where are the suicide bombers?)
Even if their lives had not been poisoned by the ministrations of a huge welfare bureaucracy, though, I doubt the Palestinians would have got their act together. None of the other Arabs have. Everywhere you look around the Arab world you see squalor, despotism, cruelty, and hopelessness. The best they have been able to manage, politically speaking, has been the Latin-American style one-party kleptocracies of Egypt and Jordan. Those are the peaks of Arab political achievement under independence, under government by their own people. The norm is just gangsterism, with thugs like Assad, Qaddafi, or Saddam in charge. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with religion: the secular states (Iraq, Syria) are just as horrible as the religious ones like Saudi Arabia. These people are hopeless. We are all supposed to support the notion of a Palestinian state. Why? We know perfectly well what it would be like. Why should we wish for another gangster-satrapy to be added to the Arab roll of shame, busy manufacturing terrorists to come here and slaughter Americans in their offices? I don't want to see a Palestinian state. I think I'd be crazy to want that.
What, actually, are the possible futures for the Palestinians? I think the following list is exhaustive.
1. An independent state, under Arafat or someone just as thuggish.
2. Military occupation by Israel.
3. Re-incorporation into a Jordanian-Palestinian nation.
4. Some sort of U.N. trusteeship.
5. Expulsion from the West Bank and Gaza, those territories then incorporated into Israel.
Number 1 is what we are all supposed to want. As I have already indicated, I don't want it, and I can't see why anyone else would, either. Except Palestinians, I suppose: If they yearn to be ruled by amoral hoodlums (as, according to polls, they apparently do), I suppose they have some theoretical right to see their wishes fulfilled â€" but why should the rest of us allow it to happen, given the dangers to us? Number 2 might work for a time, but the Israelis would eventually get fed up with it, and then we'd move on to one of the other options. Number 3 would get us back to the pseudo-stability of pre-1967, but is deeply unpopular with Jordanians â€" and look what happened in 1967! Number 4 undoubtedly has the UNRWA bureaucrats drooling, but as with number 1, it's hard to see what's in it for the rest of us. Aren't we handing over enough of our money in welfare payments to our own people?
Which leaves us with number 5: expulsion. I am starting to think that this might be the best option. I'm not the only one, either. Here is Dick Armey, Republican leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, talking to Chris Matthews on Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Well, just to repeat, you believe that the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there?
Rep. ARMEY: Yes.
When I say "the best option," I don't mean "best for the Palestinians". I don't think they have any good options. Being Arabs, they are incapable of constructing a rational polity, so their future is probably hopeless whatever happens. Their options are the ones I listed above: to be ruled by gangsters, or Israelis, or Jordanians, or welfare bureaucrats. Or to go live somewhere else, under the gentle rule of their brother Arabs. Would expulsion be hard on the Palestinians? I suppose it would. Would it be any harder than options 1 thru 4? I doubt it. Do I really give a flying falafel one way or the other? No, not really.
â€" Mr. Derbyshire is also an NR contributing editor
18 - aryeah
What can I say except at least you do not find Israelis grabbing Palestinians off the street and killing them. All you have to complain about is the holding of 100 women and 300 kids.
How many Israeli executions are there. That kid who was killed for nothing by thugs
Or lets look at how the Palestinians treat each other. Do they really deserve to have their own government. They execute on sight anyone who was put in harms way by an accuser that they are Israeli collaborators. Also before Oslo those Palestinians were not the threat they are today to Israelis.
Say what you will about Israelis but they do not kill and disrespect the dead like the Palestinians. I will never forget the innocent Russian immigrants who were pushed from a police station window to their deaths and then had their guts ripped out by their killers. What sick people the Palestinians appear to be to do that. Frankly where would you feel safer as an Arab in Gaza or Televiv. I imagine Televiv because in Gaza some idiot could misfire his flaky Kasams and hit your house.
Gaza is proof peace gestures are wasted on the HAMAS. The idiots never learn. I ask you does it make sense to pick a fight with a world champion boxer when you can barely fight. That is the stupidity of this fight. If the Palestinians would only except the fact that they share a heritage with Jews and are directly related.
If they would stop the hate and anti-social behavior they would have had all that they requested(Certainly a Palestinian State) already but again they just too hateful to see the truth of that.
They do not understand why Israel is so important to Jews or care evidently. Even though
they have many Moslem or soley moslem countries Jews only have one Jewish state.
It seems most Palestinians live in Jordan and yet they still need a Palestinian state they are willing to die for. The Palestinian land is so valuable to Palestinians they refuse to give it up. I have wondered if the price was right if they would sell it. What do Y'all think?
1 million USD per acre a good price?
The whole thing is just so stupid. If I built a matter transmitter and transmitted all life forms in Gaza to the desert of Arabia would that end it. I still say if you can not buy the land with a screaming economy maybe you can build such a machine and handle it that way!
19 - Evan
The only solution is complete invasion, subjugation, and assimilation into a better society that will take generations to complete. But realistically that will never happen, it took decades before Israel even dared to accept the Ethiopian jews not to mention the Palestians will outpace the Israelis in birthrate. I guess then the only solution is to keep them in ghettos where they will build their hatred and pass it to their childern. Not to mention area that has one of the highest population densities on the planet. The Palestinians must collectively wake up, submit and realize they cant live under these conditions any longer. Then they can wait another century years and choose to rise up again, or live in peace. By the way read the 13th tribe... current jews have no real claim to the land. Second, the land was very plentiful. Whoever says that Israel was a wasteland until it was colonized by foreigners is an outright lie. Peace to humanity! =)
20 - pablo
13th Tribe?....That would be Manasseh and Ephraim, modern day USA and England. They're not Jews. They're Israeli. Meaning from the 10 Northern Tribes that were taken into captivity by the Assyrians and never returned.
21 - Arch Conservative
How many jews have strapped bombs on thier bodies and stood at bus stops and cafes full of palestinians and blown themselves up Jamal?
The palesistinians worshipped Arafat, a man who had billiosn of dollars and didn't give them a dime of it although many of them are very poor. Yet they possess an irrational all consuming hatred of the Jews.
[Edited]
22 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Ace,
I got a question for you. Wouldn't it be cheaper to just shut off Gaza's water and juice and let the bums drink sea water? Why should OUR soldiers risk their lives if the gov't does't want to use block busters? From the looks of things Arabs are beginning to flee to Egypt and the Egyptians are having a hard time bottling them up in Gaza like they used to before '67.
23 - Gary
I believe that the majority of the Palestinian people want peace and would support a two state solution. This has been recently verified by a few independent surveys of the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the extremist Palestinians have always pushed their thinking on the majority of the people. Keeping the majority of the Palestinians poorly educated, poor and impoverished, helps the extremists stay in power (yes, this approach has been used by many radical governments throughout history).
What have the Palestinians done about the billions of support dollars that were sent by the US and other governments to help "the people" but wound up in Arafat’s oversees accounts? His wife and family continues to live outside Gaza or the West Bank and continues to sit on all the billions that were suppose to go to the Palestinians. Why isn't there an outcry from the people? I believe it is because the extremist leaders, Hamas, etc, don't permit dissention or protest.
Only until the Palestinian people recognize the State of Israel and truly work for a two state peaceful solution will the violence stop. Unfortunately, I do not see this happening - Muslum history and culture proves that Muslums historically do not ultimately accept compromise or options of peace very often.
24 - Evan
Hi Pablo...
The 13th tribe came from the Khazar Empire, a major but almost forgotten power in Eastern Europe, which in the Dark Ages became converted to Judaism because they chose not to ally with the other religious powers of the time. Khazaria was finally wiped out by the forces of Genghis Khan, but evidence indicates that the Khazars themselves migrated to Poland and formed the cradle of Western Jewry, and all modern jewry. On a side note I don't know if anyone saw the program of this one Israeli anthropologist who went around the globe looking for lost jews. He found this group in India that had all the symbols and traditions but even them didnt know why they follow it. Very interesting... As for Arch conservative... you are crazy, in a silly way. Next time try to look at the system involved, meaning why people do something because it is out of their control. If I kept you a room filled with people and kicked ur ass everyday, lets see what you will become. You should pray to God everyday you live in a better place. You might say something stupid now, but that's who you are. Just count ur lucky stars, ok....
25 - Goldstien
Jamal's Statement: "Releasing the soldier will cause nothing, the invasion will continue under another excuse no doubt, and keep hiding him will cause the invasion to be worse, it will force a door-to-door scan, a giant number of arrests, and most definitely will cause the Israelis to amplify the time needed for the completion of that invasion with whatever missions they want to accomplish under the surface there."
That is complete BS and an obvious attempt at Anti-Semitic propaganda. The Palestinians brought this upon themselves as they always seem to do.
All Isreal wants is that young man back and to arrest those responsible for his abduction. But because the Hamas cannot control themselves or behave in any civil manor whatsoever, there are now 8 Hamas cabinet members and 20 others under arrest for this Hamas-State sanctioned kidnapping.
Israel will (and has the right to) arrest the remaining Hamas leadership. That will be a good thing. Hopefully end the Terrorist State of Hamas, end the economic sactions and ultimately benefit the average palistians.